Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Mid-Spring Edition. Happy Beltane!

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I don't know if they're necessarily a pond of crap...I mean, they're bad, sure, but I enjoyed this one. It was bad but fun and it knew it was cheesy just concentrated on showing us the best exploding gibs they could film.

Yeah, that's what I meant, so bad it's good.

 

[Osprey]

The final scene kinda stays with you for a bit lol.

It kind of makes up for the rest of the film being such a slow burn.

 

[Chili]

The Big Parade-1925

Story of a wealthy young man who enters WWI and all he experiences. From a sheltered home life to enlisting, embarkation to arriving in France. The film hits a lot of notes from humour, romance, comradeship, drama and the main conflict. The realism of the battle scenes and results hits home. Many memorable moments, classic.

1917-2019

Gripping from start to finish. Love the real time. Felt like I was there, experiencing the dangers of a messenger. Appreciated the attention to detail. The river sequence is awesome filming.

Two great war films.

 

[Osprey]

The Big Parade-1925

Story of a wealthy young man who enters WWI and all he experiences. From a sheltered home life to enlisting, embarkation to arriving in France. The film hits a lot of notes from humour, romance, comradeship, drama and the main conflict. The realism of the battle scenes and results hits home. Many memorable moments, classic.

1917-2019

Gripping from start to finish. Love the real time. Felt like I was there, experiencing the dangers of a messenger. Appreciated the attention to detail. The river sequence is awesome filming.

Two great war films.

I like that you watched two WWI films made nearly 100 years apart back-to-back. I watched both last year, myself, but separated by a few months. My review of The Big Parade is here, if you're interested.

 

[Chili]

I like that you watched two WWI films made nearly 100 years apart back-to-back. I watched both last year, myself, but separated by a few months. My review of The Big Parade is here, if you're interested.

Nice review. I like to pick two similar films from different eras to compare. Both those films should age well.

 

[silkyjohnson50]

The final scene kinda stays with you for a bit lol.

It’s so good. Can’t quite remember seeing an ending like that before. That actress was great throughout that whole movie.

 

[The Kingslayer]

It kind of makes up for the rest of the film being such a slow burn.

Im a fan of those type of movies.

 

[The Kingslayer]

Reign of Fire, 2002

Spoilers

Dragons erupt from beneath the tunnels of London and burn down the world. Twenty years later Quinn (Christian Bale) is leading a small community of survivors in the area once known as Scotland with hopes of outlasting the dragons as both sides slowly starve to death.

The first half was surprisingly good for the somewhat hard to take seriously premise. I loved the aesthetic of the survivor community, it's clear the writers put thought into what a setting like this might look like. I liked that the film immediately sets up a major conflict: there's already unrest within the community as a faction wants to harvest their crops early because of fears of starvation (1) while Quinn wants to wait so they can harvest healthy seeds and plant a crop next year. "But we don't know if there'll be a next year!" they cry.

Logical nitpick #1: Despite being in a setting where everyone is supposedly starving no one looks like they're actually starving. In particular the ring leader of the above mutiny is a fairly hefty dude, complete with a frog like distended double chin

I liked how this was then immediately exacerbated with an action scene wherein the crop is destroyed. Oh no! Now they really will starve! Escalation. I liked how they then introduced a group of bloodthirsty Americans out to hunt some dragons, led by a hamtasatic Matthew McConaughey playing a possibly crazy, possibly determined, possibly a savoir Van Zant. The hammy performance worked well in contrast to Quinn's quiet desperation. Will Van Zant save the community and teach them to fight for themselves, and give them some hope? Or is he a crazy mofo and will lead to their doom, as Bale eventually decides is the case. Or is this all an act to get into the repurposed Scottish castle and take all their stuff? Whereas a more serious performance would have given it away here Van Zant is equal parts insane and a true believer: he is a fanatic, and has nothing but contempt for anyone who disagrees. Further escalation! Especially when Van Zant proves true to his word and kills one of the flying beasts. The conflict within the community grows, to the point that Quinn's chosen successor (who I did not know was his chosen successor until I read the wiki) decides to go off with the Americans, sick of waiting around for what he assumes to be their deaths.

Logical nitpick #2: So the military might of the West in the year of our Lord 2000 is not enough to defeat the dragons, up to and including nukes, which were used and did not work, but you can kill one with what amounts to a harpoon gun?

Unfortunately, none of this really has anything to do with the dragons, up to this point you could cut the dragons out and it wouldn't make much of a difference, it could be a nuclear apocalypse or a zombie apocalypse or a pandemic or unspecified and still have a story about a community on the brink then forced to deal with a man who is equal parts a savior and their doom. So from here it descends into action schlock. Van Zant takes some men and supplies and gets them all blown up by a dragon and then the dragon comes and kills more men and blows up more supplies at the repurposed Scottish castle in revenge, then Van Zant comes crawling back and admits Quinn was right, but now Quinn wants to fight the dragons even though everything about this shows he was right? Then three guys (Van Zant, Quinn and Quinn's forced love interest, which is a particularly bad one) infiltrate London because Quinn knows the tunnels and they have a standoff with the daddy dragon and kill him, which is good because that was the only male dragon. So it turns out the British reticence, even in the face of disaster in the film, was wrong as opposed to unrelenting American force to solve your problems and this will shock you but the film was conceived, written and shot mostly before 9/11, perhaps making it one of the worst timings of a film release ever.

Tl:dr: I wrote so much about this mediocre movie, for one to take my mind off the playoffs, but for two that this exemplifies a problem common in modern fantasy: the fantasy schtick has jack all to do with narrative. By which I mean the good bits I liked had nothing to do with the dragons, and for that it feels a waste. A lot of writers think up a good schtick and think this particular schtick is enough to carry the series when the core of storytelling is conflict: narrative growth and change. Reign of Fire has that in the first 40 minutes before losing it as they run around a set trying to throw grenades into a CGI dragon's mouth.

I remember how hyped I was when I saw Dragons and Helicopters on the movie poster thinking we would get atleast a few Helicopter vs Dragon fight scenes. There was one scene but it wasnt a fight. 16 yr old me was dissapointed.

 

[Osprey]

Im a fan of those type of movies.

So am I. I was making a very dry joke.

 

[JackSlater]

Spoor (2017) Directed by Agnieszka Holland 7A

Set in a remote, mountainous region in Poland near the Czech border, Spoor focuses on Janina, an old, cantankerous woman with two dogs that she loves. Though she teaches English part-time to school kids, she is pretty much seen as the town's local kook with her strange ways and her taste for astrology. When one of her dogs goes missing, she confronts a local hunter, an adversay named "Bigfoot," who shortly thereafter turns up dead. Janina remains more upset about her missing dog but the local sheriff and parish priest merely admonish her, not help her. There are a lot of hunters in this town, and suddenly some of them start showing up dead, too. One such body is surrounded by nothing but deer tracks. Something strange is going on in the Klodzko Valley.

Spoor is a delightful eco-friendly thriller, but don't let that the ecological ramifications put you off. This is a wonderful, highly entertaining mystery, fillled with colourful characters,and graced by a brilliant lead performance by Agnieszka Mandat. Spoor has a little bit of everything: a sort of Eastern European Miss Marple, gorgeous visuals, humour, a clever story, a twist you won't see coming, and tucked in there neatly, a droll political statement about animal rights that is not the least bit grating. Holland is an accomplished film maker (Europa, Europa; Burning Bush; In Darkness) and Spoor is among her finest works.

subtitles

The Criterion Channel

I almost watched this movie yesterday as I was searching for The Vanishing (Spoorloos) on Criterion. I'd never heard of it before. Might throw it on late tonight.

 

[Osprey]

The Misfits (2021) - 2/10 (Hated it)

An eclectic team of young do-gooders enlist a veteran thief (Pierce Brosnan) to help them steal millions in gold from an Arab prison so that they can give it to needy children. It's like an Ocean's 11 wannabe, but set in Abu Dhabi. It must've been bankrolled by the UAE because it felt like a travel brochure, with the characters saying how much they like it in Abu Dhabi as they're being taxied around in sports cars and sipping drinks on the beach. Brosnan has some of his usual charisma, but he attempts a strange New York-like accent that I found unappealing and distracting. His teammates include Nick Cannon, the ringleader whose special skill is being the insufferable jokester of the group, an Asian girl who specializes in martial arts and hating men, a real-life Thai pop star who sports demolition skills and nice hair and a Kuwaiti "prince" who has no skills, not even acting. Basically, it's a criminal team that you'd expect to find only in a movie, especially one made for the global market. Tim Roth is the "villain" who's not a threat or even intimidating, just a boob for us to laugh at as the team gets the best of him by stealing his gold. It never feels like there's any danger or anything at stake. The success of the team is never in doubt. The heist, itself, is so underwhelming that, after it was over, I went "wait, that was it?" There's nothing exciting or thrilling about the movie. Before it ever gets the chance, the script undermines itself with a joke or some silliness. It definitely doesn't take itself seriously, which I can sort of respect, but it's also seriously unfunny. Take, for example, Cannon putting on a fake mustache and adopting an Arab accent to pretend to be Arab or the Thai pop star dancing to Kpop while drilling into the vault. The movie tries so hard for cheap laughs and the plot and presentation are so saccharine that it almost made me want to throw up. It was directed by Renny Harlin, who made two of my favorite 90s action movies (Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger), and I may not be able to enjoy them the same way again, knowing that he went on to make this. If you have any taste, avoid this movie.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Arkansas

with some respectably big, appealing names...and this one other, very different guy.

Liam Hemsworth is Kyle, a drug dealer who has been "promoted" to work in Arkansas under a legendary local underworld figure Frog, who he has never met. John Malkovich is the lieutenant overseeing the local distribution outlet under the cover as park rangers (really), who's pretty chill for him. But the plot twists and turns as the bodies pile up, a comely female interest pops up, Vince Vaughn is kinda the bad guy as Frog...but something's wrong. In the middle of all this is Swin, who Kyle meets upon his arrival in Arkansas. Swin is this short, ugly, doughy, pallid guy with terrible long unkempt hair and an awful 12 year-old let it grow too long kind of mustache who spews "witty" banter, and everything he says makes you want to punch him in the face. He won't leave. Or shut up. But he's always there. The comely female interest? Oh, she goes for Swin over Kyle (who, let's recap, is Liam Hemsworth). Swin meets her in a supermarket and follows her out to her car after she rebuffs him. Instead of kicking him in the balls and calling the cops, she not only dates him but sleeps with him immediately after he's conspicuously awkward, creepy and weirded-out on their one and only date. Why is this guy here? Why is everyone acting like he's somehow attractive? Why won't people kill him painfully?

...oh. He's Clark Duke. The director. And producer. And screenwriter iirc. It's like some kind of elaborate practical joke or performance art piece. The whole time you're wondering: "How are these people here doing this movie with this guy as romantic hero even though he's basically a basement-dwelling internet troll who wandered into the story somehow?" Hemsworth spends the whole movie rolling his eyes with his arms folded and will barely even look at the camera in disgust. I can't blame him. Mrs. PC and I were like WTF the whole way through. And it's actually not bad going through the parts when Swin's not there...but it's just totally weird. We were constantly asking ourselves what the joke was. What horrible blackmail information does Clark Duke have on people? No idea. Maybe he's just rich and this is his wish fulfillment project where his ugly, creepy, gross alter ego can be totally repellent and yet somehow still be desirable. Ugh.

On Prime.

Spot the male lead in this picture. No, really.

 

[Osprey]

Censor (2021) - 6/10 (Liked it)

In 1980s Britain, a film censor (Niamh Algar) reviews a low budget horror film and suspects that the actress in it is her missing sister. It's a British psychological horror about obsession and what's real. Its subject reminded me a bit of Videodrome, which is also about violent films sparking a person's obsession with getting to the source of them. I liked that it's set during the "video nasty" scare of the early 80s, when violence in movies was a hot societal topic, and particularly liked that it depicts the British side of it, since I'm a little less familiar with that. There's a lot of watching of VHS tapes and low budget horror, which elicited some nostalgia. The director occasionally even plays with the camera image to evoke it. The pace, structure and theme reminded me of Saint Maud. It's similarly a slow burn and never scary, but has atmosphere and some unsettling imagery that may or may not be real. It starts out conservatively drab and dark, but becomes more stylized and seemingly "giallo" inspired as the film progresses and our protagonist gets further down the rabbit hole. By the end, it's pretty artsy and surreal, which isn't really to my taste, but it wasn't too weird that I was lost and I understood what the director was going for. I have a feeling that some of you will appreciate it more. Overall, I found the film interesting and liked enough about it to recommend it if you like stylish horror. It's available to rent on YouTube and Google Play, as well as Prime Video in the US.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Arkansas

with some respectably big, appealing names...and this one other, very different guy.

Liam Hemsworth is Kyle, a drug dealer who has been "promoted" to work in Arkansas under a legendary local underworld figure "Frog", who he has never met. John Malkovich is the lieutenant overseeing the local distribution outlet under the cover as park rangers (really), who's pretty chill for him. But the plot twists and turns as the bodies pile up, a comely female interest pops up, Vince Vaughn is kinda the bad guy as Frog...but something's wrong. In the middle of all this is Swin, who Kyle meets upon his arrival in Arkansas. Swin is this short, ugly, doughy, pallid guy with terrible long unkempt hair and an awful 12 year-old let it grow too long kind of mustache who spews "witty" banter, and everything he says makes you want to punch him in the face. He won't leave. Or shut up. But he's always there. The comely female interest? Oh, she goes for Swin over Kyle (who, let's recap, is Liam Hemsworth). Swin meets her in a supermarket and follows her out to her car after she rebuffs him. Instead of kicking him in the balls and calling the cops, she not only dates him but sleeps with him immediately after he's conspicuously awkward, creepy and weirded-out on their one and only date. Why is this guy here? Why is everyone acting like he's somehow attractive? Why won't people kill him painfully?

...oh. He's Clark Duke. The director. And producer. And screenwriter iirc. It's like some kind of elaborate practical joke or performance art piece. The whole time you're wondering: "How are these people here doing this movie with this guy as romantic hero even though he's basically a basement-dwelling internet troll who wandered into the story somehow?" Hemsworth spends the whole movie rolling his eyes with his arms folded and will barely even look at the camera in disgust. I can't blame him. Mrs. PC and I were like WTF the whole way through. And it's actually not bad going through the parts when Swin's not there...but it's just totally weird. We were constantly asking ourselves what the joke was. What horrible blackmail information does Clark Duke have on people? No idea. Maybe he's just rich and this is his wish fulfillment project where his ugly, creepy, gross alter ego can be totally repellent and yet somehow still be desirable. Ugh.

On Prime.

Spot the male lead in this picture. No, really.

It's a decent Coen Brothers impersonation as far as that goes. Agree completely about Duke. Funny enough I also think Hemsworth is a tad too pretty for his role. Better movie if the two leads are a bit recalibrated.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Watched Falling Down w/Michael Douglas. What happens when you can't get breakfast at 11:35am? You'll find out! LOL. Great performance social commentary. 9/10.

 

[OzzyFan]

After Hours
3.00 out of 4stars

"An ordinary word processor has the worst night of his life after he agrees to visit a girl in Soho who he met that evening at a coffee shop."
Scorsese's bizarre and awkward adventure black humor flick over the course of one night in New York City. Dunne plays the everyman fish out of water with deadpan accuracy near perfectly. A funny trip that had me laughing for and at protagonist throughout.


The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard
2.20 out of 4stars

"The bodyguard Michael Bryce continues his friendship with assassin Darius Kincaid as they try to save Darius' wife Sonia."
If you liked the first one, you'll like this one. If you didn't then stay away. It's the same over the top back and forth vulgar banter and violence/action with Reynolds/Samuel Jackson and now a lot of Salma Hayek. You'll either find it as adequate light mindless fun or incredibly annoying and childish.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Look Back In Anger (1959) - 6.5/10

I love that classic British setting background, just a shame that the foreground is Richard Burton yelling and abusing at two perfectly nice women with an Englishman doing such a stereotypical Welsh accent that even a North American can recognize that he's doing a Welsh accent. I will say the half hour albiet of melodrama comes together a little bit better than the rest of the film including the clumsily introduced love triangle which doesn't work for me but I don't generally like triangles except Tolberones which would be better if they were flat and unpretentious.

 

[silkyjohnson50]

Motherless Brooklyn. 6/10. It won’t be memorable, but I also didn’t feel like I wasted 2.5 hours of my life. It was good, just not very good. But I liked it.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

It's a decent Coen Brothers impersonation as far as that goes. Agree completely about Duke. Funny enough I also think Hemsworth is a tad too pretty for his role. Better movie if the two leads are a bit recalibrated.

Coen brothers...yeah. Small town Americana gangsters...I can see it. It's not even that bad of a movie plot-wise, it's just that Swin ruins everything. Is it a joke? Is it serious? Which would be worse, banging away at one joke that's painfully unfunny, or this Clark Duke dude has some serious psychological issues, and we're watching mental illness unfold on the screen?

Halfway through I literally said: "What is this guy, the director?" and we made a point to see in the ending credits...yup. Same guy. We both burst a gut laughing for a good thirty seconds.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Had a real banner weekend (for the most part) of garbage movie viewing.

Star Crash. Late 70s Roger Corman cheap-o sci-fi that somehow feels even cheaper than it probably was. I know some love it. I was mostly bored to be honest. Sometimes some things are too bad to be redeemed.

Highway to Hell. I rewatched Freejack a week ago and though the stories are nothing alike I found a lot of parallels. Fun story (written by a future Oscar winner) with some good world building and production design. A lot of interesting actors on the fringes including a big bad played by a more respectable actor from the U.K. bringing a little more gravitas than is probably deserved. Held back a bit by a lead who is a bit of a drip and a henchman villain that's a zero. But overall I found this genuinely enjoyable. Nothing ironic about it. I'd read a detailed oral history about this movie.

Dead-End Drive-In. Believe it or not I'd been wanting to watch this for a while. I've seen the preview many times and every time I think "that looks great!" I finally watched and dear readers, it was not great. It rivals Werewolves on Wheels for having the biggest gap between a trailer that looks awesome and a movie that's just utter dreck. The most shocking thing in Dead-End Drive-In is that it's mostly a dreadfully dull attempt at social commentary. The main character is, however, nicknamed Crabs because he once thought he might have crabs.

Tammy & The T-Rex. It's really hard to make a ridiculous and bad movie on purpose. I often find such ventures go too far over the top or they're too cute by half. This, impressively, hits the right tone perfectly. I had a good time.

The Visitor. What if The Omen, but like really really high? I wouldn't dream of spoiling the total weirdness of this. John Huston has one of the great "sure why not?" acting careers and this is waaaaayyyy up there.

Space Truckers. Stuart Gordon is far better known for his horror efforts but he occasionally popped over to sci-fi. I have a soft spot for Robot Jox in particular. This was ok too. Gordon has a pretty good sense for tactile, physical things that I appreciate and feel is sometimes half the battle in sci-fi flicks. This takes a helping of Alien and mixes in some decent humor. This is going to shock you, but this also turns to a respectable British actor to be a hammy villain and it again works. By no means a lost or misunderstood classic, but a fairly enjoyable 90 minutes.

 

[kihei]

John Huston has one of the great "sure why not?" acting careers and this is waaaaayyyy up there.

Wish I had written that.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Wish I had written that.

Jokes aside it's a really fascinating juxtaposition with his work as a director. He was pretty varied there too but there's always an element of class or polish or prestige in some way. Huston the actor, aside from Chinatown, shows none of that taste, especially later in life.

It's like when you hear the stories of great chefs and they're asked what they like to eat and they're like "Oooooohh definitely Taco Bell."

I love him for it.

Edit: And thank you for the compliment. Means a lot.

 

[Osprey]

The French Connection (1971) - 5/10

Detective Doyle chases a French heroin smuggler in NYC. It didn't really leave an impression when I last saw it over 20 years ago, so I decided to re-watch it in hopes that I would see this time why it won Best Picture. Honestly, I still don't understand. It does have a terrific car chase with an elevated train and an entertaining cat-and-mouse game in a subway station, but the rest is less exciting and a bit nonsensical. For one, I still don't understand how they returned the car to its owner in like new condition after they literally sawed and ripped it into hundreds of pieces. Also, it has an ambiguous ending, which is not really satisfying for a crime thriller, but what's worse is that the film clears it up in the postscript. What's the point of leaving the audience guessing if you give them the answer seconds later? Overall, it felt like a good enough crime thriller, but I can't really see what makes it exceptional, besides the iconic car chase. Maybe it was a weak Oscar year or I've just seen so many crime thrillers that were made since that I can't imagine how fresh and exciting it felt in 1971. Then again, I don't have any problem understanding why The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars and Alien are exceptional, despite over 40 years of copycats in those sub-genres. Who knows.

French Connection II (1975) - 5/10

Detective Doyle chases a French heroin smuggler in Marseilles. I hadn't seen this before, probably because I assumed that it was bad. It actually isn't, though it's not that good, either. "Unnecessary" is the best way to describe it. I'm curious as to whether they made a sequel to a Best Picture winner because they couldn't resist capitalizing on it or they actually thought that they could repeat the feat. I'm at least pretty sure that Gene Hackman thought that he might win Best Actor again because, for one, a third of the film is an acting clinic for him as his character is under the influence of drugs and then goes through really bad withdrawals that include a lot of yelling and curling up into a fetal position. It felt a little over the top, but at least he didn't mail it in like actors can do when they do a sequel for the paycheck. I liked that Popeye Doyle is in France this time and can't speak a lick of the language, and that he walks into a crowded restaurant with a can of gasoline, spills it all around the customers and lights it with a match before anyone can get out. The film has more action than the original, but lacks a similarly epic chase scene. It does try to recreate it by having Doyle chase a trolley on foot, but, needless to say, it's not nearly as effective. Anyways, it felt like an average crime thriller. Then again, so did the original that won Best Picture, so what do I know.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Wacken

with people who are TOTALLY METAL

Ground eye concert-goer/celeb interview doc of the yearly (until covid ) metal music festival where the small German town of Wacken becomes a town with 85,000 more people for a few days while it hosts by far the world's biggest metal festival. We meet luminaries as high in the Rock God pantheon as Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Motorhead, Anthrax, Rammstein...and lots of lesser lights from all over the world. We hang with a few regulars and check out a worldwide battle of the bands featuring a Chinese folk metal band the director becomes obsessed with (though they are actually pretty cool). Canada is well represented in the proceedings; Annihilator from my very own hometown opens the fest on the main stage, Anvil drops by for some sweating and moral support, though really annoyingly the battle of the bands winner was announced from Canada...but they never played them or even told us the band's name. $#@@!! The f***.

But anyway, it's nice to see the tribe's still alive. Mrs. PC and I were joking about going to the next one, renting a camper or something and decided we were too old for that kind of silliness. Then Deep Purple and Alice Cooper played. Okay, if people older than us can play there...surely we could just go to it? Anyway. Movie doesn't really have a lot to say besides look at all the metal bands...and this one chick from Taiwan who clearly caught the cameraman's eye.

On Prime. METAL!!

So. Much. Metal. *sniff* It's so beautiful...*wipes away a single, manly tear*

 

[Pink Mist]

The Shipping News (2001) directed by Lasse Hallström

After his adulterous wife (Cate Blanchett) dies in a car accident, Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) moves with his aunt (Judi Dench) to their ancestral home in Newfoundland to start life anew writing for the local paper and courting a fellow widow (Julianne Moore). An adaptation of a very good Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Hallström, who is an extremely cheesy director, resulting in a very poor and soppy film. The acting is fine (aside from Spacey but I’ll get to that later), with Dench and Moore doing their best to rise above the poor script and Hallström’s direction, but they can only do so much (though Moore’s Newfoundlander accent is pretty poor). Hallström piles on instances of trauma and abuse (Adultery! Rape! Car accidents! Incest!) that the characters experienced in their past but is content with not truly addressing them so we’ll have weird instances where a character is revealed to be have raped and impregnated by their brother when they were 12 and then never have it brought up again in the whole movie. Just real lazy direction to introduce drama and get an emotional rise out of the audience. Which is strange to say because it was also just a boring movie and maybe some drama with stakes would have been welcome? This is where I talk about Kevin Spacey. Spacey is a big problem in this movie – and this isn’t referring to his alleged pedophilia and sexual assault allegations, though that certainly is an elephant in the room and makes scenes with him playing with children kind of uncomfortable. Spacey is just flat in this movie and sucks out the energy of every scene he is in – which is most of them since he’s the protagonist. Really not convincing as the lead and is just boring in his role. That said, the cinematography is pretty great and Newfoundland looks beautiful on film.